


Pocket Watch

by TheNebula



Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-27
Updated: 2013-03-27
Packaged: 2017-12-06 16:54:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/737959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNebula/pseuds/TheNebula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time can screw you over, but it never lets you down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pocket Watch

**Author's Note:**

> I have been obsessing over Darcy's pocket watch since episode 99, and was thinking about where he got it and what it meant to him, and this came out. It's set several years after they get married.  
> With this and his calender-of-everything, I figured Darcy had an obsession with time, and wanted to play with that.  
> I've never completed a fanfic before. Hope you enjoy.

He’s nervous. She can tell because he has his pocket watch out, opening and closing it with a steady click, click, click… He loves that thing, carries it everywhere. It looks small and delicate in his large hands, but she knows he’d never break it. When they’d first started dating, many years ago, and he’d pulled it out, she’d been surprised, but now she wonders why- it was so him. Of course he carried a pocket watch. What else would he carry, the big dork.

God, she loves him.

“I've been meaning to ask you” she says quietly, “Where did you get that from? It looks old.”  
He looks up at her, but his hands don’t stop moving, steady and strong. “It was my fathers. I believe he got it from a market stall in Yorkshire, when he was a boy, for some string and a harmonica.” A smile twitches at the corer of his lips. His voice is hushed too The waiting room created a kind of enclosed silence, the kind that only the very young and the beyond caring were immune to. The smile fades as he glances at the leaflets dotted around the walls. “He used to take it everywhere with him. I can’t imagine the two apart. I was fascinated by it, played with it at any opportunity. My mother and Gigi, they used to tease me because I was more interested in an old watch than toys and books.”  
“And why were you so interested?” She too glances at the leaflets. One says: “Please wash your hands before entering any of the wards. This helps reduce the spread of infection.” He has already washed his three times.  
“I just found it comforting. Time is perhaps the most ordered thing in the universe, the most reliable. Whatever happens, it just keeps on ticking, never changing. Even if the world ended, it would still be there. Time can screw you over, but it never lets you down.”  
“You’re uh, familiar with special relativity, right?” she smirks.  
“Of course. Don’t ruin my metaphor.”  
She shoulder bumps him affectionately. He’s still clicking and unclicking the latch. She can imagine him doing that as a child, and in ten years time, and fifty.  
He continues “My father had it on him when he died. The police found it in his breast pocket. When they gave it to me, I assumed it would have stopped working when he did, bookmarking the time that the world stopped turning. It hadn't, of course. Time is indiscriminate, even toward the dead.” They’re both quiet now. He doesn't usually talk about this kind of stuff.  
“I’m scared, Lizzie.”  
“I know. But there’s no need to be. Today is going to go fine.”  
“You can’t possibly know that. And besides, even if there is nothing wrong, none of thousands of complications, how can I know that I’ll be a good… I don’t know if I can…” His hands falter, breaking the rhythm. He starts again, distracted and tense. “A child with you is all I could ever ask for, and I- I just can’t be sure if I’ll… be good at it. Being a father. A Dad. When I raised Gigi... I was 17, Lizzie, and I had no idea what I was doing. Suddenly I had to look after this kid, and I knew I could never, ever rise to the standard of our real parents, never be a decent enough substitute. I tried my best, I protected her in every way I could, but it backfired. I kept her so safe and wrapped up that she became isolated, and she resented me for it. My actions drove her away, right into the arms of George Wickham. I couldn’t protect her from that, or the sadness that followed. I did what I could, but it haunts me to this day, Lizzie, that I could have, should have done better.”  
The sad clicks echo quietly around the room. She gently takes the watch out of his hand, and holds it in hers. She thinks of all the times he’s tried to find answers in this little machine. “You said it yourself, Will. You were 17. Gigi’s lucky to have a big brother like you. And no matter how much you beat yourself up about it, George is in the wrong here, not you…”  
“If I hadn't stifled her, If I’d let her be her own person…”  
“Rather than what, protecting her? You did what you thought was best, regardless of whether it was right or wrong, and that’s better than most. You've got to let go of the past, Will. Time marches on, and so must we, or it will consume us. It’s the only way. The past… it’s ordered. Structure among chaos. And the future is uncertain and scary. But I’m here, that’s a certain. And so is this.” She places his hand on her stomach. There’s barely a bump yet, but it doesn't matter, because he knows what she’s saying. Brilliant, beautiful Elizabeth, and the brilliant, beautiful possibility growing inside her are in that moment, so, so clear. As they sit there time is still, both non-existent and infinite, and he’s looking at her like she’s the answer to every question ever been reflected on the glass of an old pocket watch.

Except time is never still. A door opens and a tired looking nurse pokes her head through as another young couple leave through it. “Elizabeth and William Darcy? Are you ready to come in now?”  
Eyes still locked, William answers “I think so, Ma’am. I think so.”


End file.
